The Bombay High Court on Saturday sharply criticised the growing trend of allegations of bias against judges. The State had first levelled allegations of ‘bias’ against a sitting Bombay High Court judge during hearing of petitions related to silent zones. The phenomena has trickled down to common citizens levelling charges against a sitting judge, prompting the strong statements from the Bench.
The order passed by a division Bench of Justice S.C. Dharmadhikari and Justice P.D. Naik followed arguments by one M.H. Patel, a petitioner, who appeared in person and said he had no faith in the impartiality or integrity of one of the judges (Justice Dharmadhikari) and specifically requested the Chief Justice (Manjula Chellur) to assign this matter to a Bench other than the one presided over by Justice Dharmadhikari. He also wanted that at least one of the judges should recuse himself from his cases.
This invited the ire of the Bench which noted in its order that “the trend, which is now increasing, of judges being called upon to recuse themselves, has to be deprecated and discouraged.”
Repeated complaint
This is not the first time Mr. Patel made such a request. He was also a litigant before the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal at Mumbai and he made an application in which allegations were made of lack of faith and trust even in Members of the Tribunal. As a result some of them had to recuse themselves from the proceedings.
The Bench pointed out, “The proceedings at the Tribunal therefore, dragged endlessly. Sometimes we must remind ourselves that such ploys or tactics are adopted by litigants so as to delay the obvious. If the delay is to their benefit, then, they can go to any extent so as not to invite an adverse order or anything contrary to their interest. It is that perception which is entertained by the litigants and that is how for a favourable verdict, they resort to every tactic in the book or even impermissible in law or unknown to fairness, equity and justice.”
The order said, “The trend, which is now increasing, of judges being called upon to recuse themselves, therefore, has to be deprecated and discouraged. It must be nipped in the bud. We do not think that the litigant, who is appearing in person before us, can be given an opportunity to dictate to the court...”
